GASKELL AND THE BRONTËS

Literary Manuscripts of Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) and the Brontës from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds

This project brings together two outstanding collections for the study of Victorian literature from the holdings of the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds.

The collection of Elizabeth Gaskell's letters is the largest in the world. There are many to her daughters, Marianne (Polly), Margaret (Meta), Florence (Flossie) and Julia, and to her sisters-in-law, Eliza Holland and Nancy Robson. These tell us much about her concerns, her views of literature, and her life at home with the Rev William Gaskell. They feature a host of observations of human behaviour and personal relationships of the type that she captured so elegantly in Cranford and Wives and Daughters.

'Factory Girls' and her concern for the working classes crop up frequently in the correspondence and a letter to Lord Lansdowne of 16 October 1862 concerns the plight of Lancashire cotton workers at the time of the American Civil War. There is also a fascinating interchange with John Forster, friend and biographer of Dickens, requesting that he use his influence to get Tennyson to present a copy of his poems to Sam Bamford, the poor, aged, Lancashire weaver-poet. A subsequent letter describing the reception of the gift is a polished cameo of Victorian sentimentalism. Other correspondents include John Ruskin, Caroline Clive, and the Swedish novelist, Frederika Bremer, who addresses her as "Dear Sister in Spirit."

A brief but revealing manuscript journal kept by Elizabeth Gaskell from 1835 to 1838 is also included. This was kept for the benefit of her daughters and starts when Marianne was almost six months old. "I wish I had begun my little journal sooner," she declares at the outset, before providing a charming account of motherhood and family life.

The autograph manuscript of Sylvia's Lovers - a story of press-gangs, the whaling industry, a duplicitous husband, and sexual jealousy - was formerly in the possession of her publishers, Smith, Elder & Co, and has printer's marks as well as many revisions by the author. Part of the manuscript is missing, but one fragment from the missing section is featured in a Victorian autograph album held in the collection, which also includes interesting items by Thomas Clarkson, the Rev William Gaskell and J G Whittier.

Finally there is the Family Commonplace Book kept by Jane Adeane and family, containing a collection of anecdotes, stories, limericks, and supernatural tales. This includes a letter from Gaskell to Lady Hatherton.

The Brontë collection is equally rich and diverse. Maria Brontë, mother of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, is represented by an essay on "The advantages of poverty in religious concerns."

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) is represented by a significant body of manuscripts. Pride of place must go to the Poems, written out and dated by her husband, A B Nicholls, containing 'Memory,' 'St John on the island of Patmos,' ''tis the siesta's languid hour,' 'when thou sleepest,' 'this ring of gold,' 'she was alone that evening,' and 12 other items. This also features a 'Discussion of the Truth of the Bible' in dialogue form, attributed to Anne. There are also two exercise books used by Charlotte when travelling in Europe, 1842-1844, and written in French.

Important correspondents by Charlotte and her close friends includes letters between Charlotte and W S Williams, the reader at Smith, Elder & Co, who encouraged her talent, and a substantial body of letters and notes from and to Ellen Nussey, featuring exchanges with Augustine Birrell, Mary Howitt, Annie Sophie Morrison, Charles Scribner & Son, George Murray Smith, Martha Taylor, Mary Taylor, and others. There are also many letters from A B Nicholls to Clement K Shorter, author of Charlotte Brontë and her circle.

The particular strength of the Brontë collection is in the prose works of (Patrick) Branwell Brontë (1817-1848), who is now attracting increasing scholarly attention. They include his Letters from an Englishman, in six miniature volumes, Caractacus: A Dramatic Poem, his translation of the Odes of Horace, numerous 'Angrian' prose fragments, and his extraordinary illustrated letters to J B Leyland. Much of the Angrian material only resurfaced in 1980. The Angrian tales are wonderful in form and content and represent a fine example of the imaginary lands, lives and societies created by the Brontë children in secret for their own amusement. Over 300 folios of material describe the coronation of the King of Angria, the opening of the first Angrian Parliament, the Massacre of Dongola, the adventures of Charles Wentworth, the Angrian Revolution, and the death of Mary, wife of Northangerland. There are also autograph poems by Branwell.

There were, of course, real connections between Gaskell and the Brontës. Elizabeth Gaskell was both a close friend and Charlotte's first biographer. Her depiction of parental strictness and the loneliness of life on the moors have done much to shape subsequent perceptions of the Brontës and their works. These connections are fully reflected in the collections. One item - a fine memorial volume created for Sir Edward Brotherton - comprises a letter from the author of Jane Eyre describing a visit paid by Mrs Gaskell, and an autograph manuscript from the latter giving a lengthy account of her return visit to Charlotte Brontë at Haworth. The following extract gives a flavour of the writing:

"Before tea we had a long delicious walk right against the wood on Penstone Moor which stretches directly behind the Parsonage going over the hill in brown and purple sweeps and falling softly down into a little upland valley through which a beck ran..
Here and there in the gloom of the distant dwelling - with Scotch firs growing near them often, - & told me such wild tales of the ungovernable families who lived or had lived therein that Wuthering Heights seemed tame comparatively. Such dare-devil people, - men especially, - & women so stony & cruel in some of their feelings & so passionately fond in others. They are queer people up there."

These collections are essential sources for scholars of Gaskell and the Brontës. They provide important insights into the world of women writers and into publishing and literary life in the Victorian period.